Chapter 21: Whitesnake

It was around this time that I got back into hard rock, influenced by the new wave of rock at the time, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein, and Korn. And in a way, it was like returning home.

Which leads back to me being a younger kid, when I was huge into “hair” metal.

Metal and rap, mostly hardcore rap, were always my favorite genres, as I previously discussed, but for a time, I was consumed by metal...

At around age 10, I’d gotten cable TV and discovered MTV.

The first video I ever saw was Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again.”

I’ll never forget seeing that video. I was transfixed. I stood mesmerized in front of the living room TV, with my jaw hitting the floor. Those guys were, to me, at the time, the fucking coolest thing I’d ever seen. The way they played and held their instruments. Their attitude. Their clothes. The leather pants and jackets. The big hair. The singer and how he carried the mic, held it like a beautiful woman he was about to kiss.

And of course, there was a beautiful woman in that video. Tawny Kitaen. The vixen. In the prime of her looks. Tawny the blazing-hot redhead dancing like a stripper, doing splits on the hood of a Jaguar ... Tawny with red hair of fire. Tawny’s goddess moves and gyrations ... I’d never seen a woman who looked or moved like her...

And the music. The music! The fucking keyboard intro. Three dudes, side by side, guitars slung over their backs, playing that epic keyboard intro. Those iconic synths leading into the catchy, thrilling riffs and melodically kindling vocals that burst into a singalong chorus and then into a searing crescendo of howls ... The lyrics’ listlessly hopeless yet doggedly defiant celebration of perseverance, idealism, and individualism ... Oh my God! It was revelation! Hearing the song for the first time was as if my ears were having tantric orgasms ... I remember the hair standing up on my arms and neck, chills jolting up my spine. It was like I’d opened my eyes for the first time. It was euphoric.

Everything conceivable about the video was awesome. Seeing that, I knew what I wanted to be in life. A fucking rock star.

Growing up, I’d watch MTV compulsively. I was hooked. I especially was into the “Headbanger’s Ball” and all those metal bands of the 1980s and early 1990s. I loved them all. And still do.

Whitesnake. Ratt. Poison. Warrant.

(I saw an interview, not long ago, with Jani Lane, the lead singer of Warrant, and he expressed his disdain for his classic: “Cherry Pie.” He said he’d been forced by his label to write the song and how he hated being associated with it. Fuck that. That song rocked. Those guys rocked. They played jam-packed arenas, banged superhot chicks, made tons of cash, lived out their dreams and brought joy to millions. Jani FUCKING rocked. If he were alive, I’d give him a hug and thank him for providing us with such awesome tunes. RIP, dude.)

All those bands rocked. L.A. Guns, Guns N’ Roses. Def Leppard. Motley Crue, though, was my favorite. I loved them. I loved all that shit. And still do. Fuck anyone who has a problem with it!

While I didn’t listen to a whole lot of hard rock or metal for a while (save for White Zombie, which Jessica liked and got me into) around my senior year of high school and first year of community college, I got back into it, hard. I’d very much been inspired by Marilyn Manson and his masterpiece “Antichrist Superstar.”

I bought a new guitar, a knockoff Fender Stratocaster and cheap old Peavey bass guitar and started playing again, hoping to resurrect and fulfil my abandoned rock star dreams.

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. I didn’t realize those dreams. I walked along the lonely street of dreams unfulfilled. Like in Chuck Palahniuk’s opus book, which was adapted into the all-time classic film, “Fight Club,” there was a line I’ll paraphrase about how we all grew up watching TV, thinking we’d be rock stars, movie stars, and we’re not, and we’re pissed off about it.

I’m still sort of pissed off about not being a rock star. But not for the obvious reasons. The real story, the real reason is different. Much different.